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It took me a moment or so to digest that, and to appreciate all its
implications. Why, this fellow evidently believed, as a matter of
fact, that the French Monarchy had been overthrown by some military
adventurer named Bonaparte, who was calling himself the Emperor
Napoleon, and who had made war on Austria and forced a surrender. I
made no attempt to argue with him--one wastes time arguing with
madmen--but if this man could believe that, the transformation of a
coach-and-four into a cabbage wagon was a small matter indeed. So,
to humor him, I asked him if he thought General Bonaparte's agents
were responsible for his trouble at the inn.

"Certainly," he replied. "The chances are they didn't know me
to see me, and took Jardine for the minister, and me for the
secretary, so they made off with poor Jardine. I wonder, though,
that they left me my dispatch case. And that reminds me; I'll
want that back. Diplomatic papers, you know."

I told him, very seriously, that we would have to check his
credentials. I promised him I would make every effort to locate
his secretary and his servants and his coach, took a complete
description of all of them, and persuaded him to go into an
upstairs room, where I kept him under guard. I did start
inquiries, calling in all my informers and spies, but, as I
expected, I could learn nothing. I could not find anybody, even,
who had seen him anywhere in Perleburg before he appeared at the
Sword & Scepter, and that rather surprised me, as somebody should
have seen him enter the town, or walk along the street.